Eating out: changing Bengali middle-class practices in Calcutta in the twentieth century

Abstract

ABSTRACT Drawing on theories of consumption (Barthes 1972; Veblen 1898; Warde 2016) and taste (Bourdieu 2004), this paper analyzes the changing patterns of public consumption of food and beverages in the city of Calcutta (Kolkata) in the twentieth century. Food practices are guided by cultural traditions, geography, and social position, but are also acquired in the cosmopolitan milieu of a metropolitan city. Spaces of public consumption in the city often signify some other social practices and depending on the type of food and association concerned, specific spaces of consumption reflect the scalar taste of consumers across the social strata. While switching between different similar options, the middle class’s association with spaces of consumption shifts with the improvement of the economic condition of the consumer.